the valuation is interesting and the stars result is a lot better than expected. i think it's cheaper karen. >> yes. so we talked about a little bit before. but citigroup, which i know is also a tim favorite, still really like it. it's still trading under tangible book value, which is kind of amazing. and there's still a lot to go i think efficiencies here. the ai story for a bank is a huge one. so citibank and go new york liberty, it is the last home game, i'm sorry. last regular season playoff game court. >> i'll be quick here, but same in the banking space. and go for jp morgan. >> all right. that does it for us. thanks for watching fast money. see you on the exchange. mad money starts now.

>> hey i'm cramer. welcome to mad money. welcome to cramer. adalo my friends i'm just trying to make a little money. my job is not just to entertain but to explain all this stuff to teach it to you. so call me one 800 743 cnbc or tweet me at jim cramer. when you want to buy a stock, you need an edge. it's never enough to just say, you know what? it's time to buy xyz. i just feel it like the darn thing's a racehorse and you don't even know how to read the racing form. there are all sorts of ways to get an edge. i love an edge. maybe a quality stocks dip because of an overall market decline. maybe there's some headlines that were wrong. maybe there's news that you think will be gigantic, but others don't realize it and it pans out. today they were the dow climb 196 point 0.27%, nasdaq gain 0.37%. i want to talk to you about a new edge. a brief suggested by my friend dave kostin. he's the chief us equity strategist at goldman sachs, and he's one of the most

creative minds on the street. now. i talk about wall street research a lot, and i have a history of carping about it, frankly. and you know what? that's wrong. sometimes there's just great stuff out there that can really help you make a lot of money. like this stuff. cost inputs out costume brainstorms, and regularly comes up with some fabulous ideas that i like to incorporate into my thinking. he did it this morning on squawk on the street. that's what this is from. his stuff is essential. reading today is this terrific piece. it's called the fading tailwind from share buybacks. i know it sounds to me this is like, you know, it's it's whatever the first paragraph carries the gist. quote s&p 500 companies repurchased shares at a record pace in the first half of 2025. but buyback growth has recently stalled. end quote he tells us, quote, s&p 500 buybacks in the first half of 2025 totaled nearly $550 billion, 490 billion net of equity issuance. however, buybacks in the second quarter of 2025 were flat year over year for the s&p 500, the magnificent seven and the s&p

493. end quote. so buybacks, while strong in the first half, started to fade. they faded a bit last quarter. buybacks are integral to the market because they act as what i call a sop. if there are lots of new shares added via ipos, but not a lot of new money coming to the market, then it stands to reason that stocks will head lower. look, it is just a question of supply and demand. let's not outthink this. buybacks drain the excess supply from the system. it seems they are draining a lot less than they were just a few months ago. are costin has some great news here. while buybacks have slowed, investors continue to reward companies that aggressively purchase their own shares. and there's your edge. stocks with bountiful buybacks can do well here in contrast to those that might not. it's an edge. it's not foolproof, but it's certainly an arrow in your stock picking quiver. and the market is so hard you need things like this. let's go to the next level. there are some caveats that he gives you. the

one big beautiful bill will broadly help increase corporate cash flows positive. but cost is worried about surging capex, meaning companies spending on new plant and equipment. now, i don't mind that. but you know what? i do want these buybacks to continue. which brings me to the best part of this kind of analysis and the entire report. it's the introduction of costs. list of buyback aristocrats. now, you might have heard about dividend aristocrats, which are companies that consistently increase their dividends for 25 years or more. costco buyback aristocrats have reduced their share counts by 1% or more in at least nine of the past ten years. given the throttling back of the buyback ratio, these stocks could rise to a premium versus the rest of the market and buyback. aristocrats typically outperform when the economy slows. hey, like we're seeing right now. so which of his buyback aristocrats are the best of the best? now this is what i like to do because i am a stock picker. i like to go through these lists and there's

a number of names i'm looking for, stocks that i've already a fan of that i think can go higher off their own fundamentals. now, there are a whole bunch of characteristics that kostin chooses to accentuate, but i'm gravitating to the column that highlights the average annual change in share count during the past ten years. this is the hard part in terms of just closing your eyes and buying stocks that have large share counts. shrinkage davita is number one. now this is a kidney dialysis company that has indeed retired 9% of its share count annually for the last the last ten years. that's big. but you see, it's not something i want to buy with rfk jr anywhere near the specialty medicine business. second is ebay. now it's intriguing. just put a good quarter. that is not enough for me because i fear the old ebay coming back. it has retired stocks at a 9% clip though. and next is synchrony financial. that's a credit card issuer which has retired 7% of its shares per year. tempting, no, because you see, i prefer capital one, which said this

very day that it's stepping up share repurchases this quarter. oh, and then there's another one. don't tell me it's hp, the printer and pc company that's put back 6% of its shares on average. no, thanks. see, it keeps missing the quarter. a buyback can't cover up these kinds of snafus. but let's cut to one that i am predisposed to autozone agco the auto parts chain, which does very well in a slowdown because more people want to fix up their old car, save some money, rather than have to go buy a new one. autozone has got a legendary buyback. i checked out the share count over the last decade and it's astounding. ten years ago it had roughly 31 million shares. now it's less than 17 million shares. that's what happens when you're repurchasing at a clip of 6% every year. i like it. hey, then there's another one. jabil, a contract manufacturer for tech and health care that's been sensational. buying back stock at 5% annually. that's one worth looking into. why? because celestica, a competitor, is killing it. i'm filing it away. i put it away for another

time. now we got to go down to the companies that have been buying back stock at a 4% clip annually to find the two that i want to pound the table on right here and right now, wells fargo and apple. well, spoke today at a conference. i liked everything i heard. here's what we told club members. quote wells has bought back $5.5 billion of its stock so far this quarter. that's the most the bank has bought back in a single quarter all year. a huge, by the way, that is a huge sign of confidence from cfo mike santomassimo, who said that he's seeing green shoots now that the fed has removed the asset cap penalty on wells. i'd be a buyer if we didn't already own so much of it from my charitable trust. and i know charlie scharf is on tomorrow morning. i want to listen to him. he's the ceo and he's terrific. then let's deal with the pachyderm in the room. let's deal with apple. all right. here's a company that's addicted to buying back its own stock. it's just a serial repurchase sign that i think that management always thinks the stock is cheap, even if they don't come out and scream

that the timing here for kostin turns out to be impeccable. better be lucky than good. you know why? because today happens to be the launch of the new apple iphone the 17th. thinner. better. stronger. the iphone air dazzled because of its thinness. there were price increases. not as noteworthy as i thought they'd be. they'll mostly be absorbed by the consumer, or in part because these phones are heavily subsidized by your wireless carrier. just kind of don't feel it now. apple stock was down 1.5% today. not unusual as this is historically been a sell the news event. sell sell sell. the stock's been down or just flat after this annual iphone announcement in four of the last five years, people left it and said today wasn't the day. well, it's not supposed to be. but get this if you look at how apple's done one year after the last five years worth of launches, it's rallied 13% on average, and it was up in every single one of those years. there are lots of people who care about how apple has done over the last hour or

two hours, or maybe how long it's taking me to talk. some care even the next day. that's all nonsense. let's make real money, okay? 13% in the year after new iphone launch. that's what i call real money. i like apple, i like those launch statistics. and now i have one more reason to tell you to own it, not trade it. apple's buyback aristocrat status. oracle's by the way booming tech report tonight after the close one that swept up a lot of tech this evening could help reverse the negative action on apple. why? because there's going to be a big pin action trade for tech. i think apple gets swept up in it. let me give you the bottom line here. you need fortitude to buy stocks and stick with them. apples buyback helps that fortitude that year long increase. wow. it's worth braving today's decline. don't forget autozone jabil and the incredibly inexpensive wells fargo buy, buy buy christopher in west virginia christopher. >> booyah cramer. >> booyah christopher what chicken. >> go birds. good win on

thursday night. >> go eagles go eagles. we got my man the clog up in the center. jalen carter coming back i had to pay a little bit of a fine there per game. but you know what that's teaching me a lesson. what's going on. >> calling about a follow up on coca-cola consolidated when we spoke last time. and you weren't a fan of seeing if we had a change of heart. >> well, see, here's the problem. i'm coca-cola consolidated. yeah, it's it's a bottler. it's good. but you know what? i like to buy coca-cola. i think james james quincey. his stock is actually coming down. it's now selling at a market. multiple. quincey is a really great ceo. it's one of the few consumer packaged goods stocks that work. that's my that's my pick. right. look, it takes fortitude to buy stocks and stick with them. it's really hard to make a lot of money in the stock market. apple is a great example, though of what kind of track record that makes it worth buying after a launch and a buyback that makes it enticing for everyone. mad money tonight, drone maker aerovironment reported after the bell. and

i'm running through the numbers with the ceo. then close viewers know i'm more open to speculation as of late. we're certainly more than anybody else on tv, but some of the market's high fliers like rocket lab and pullback. so what should you make of that action? i'm going to go off the charts to see where we stand. and we are all about finding opportunity in any market. that's why i wrote a book about it. so tonight i'm covering an under the radar convenience store chain that you may not have heard of, but could be a winner for your portfolio. so stay with cramer. >> don't miss a second of mad money follow jimcramer on x. have a question tweet cramer hashtag mad mentions. send jim an email to madmoney.cnbc.com. or give us a call at one 800 743 cnbc. miss something. head to madmoney.cnbc.com. to madmoney.cnbc.com. >> how many of you

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out how you can improve your skin at omni lux aecom. >> what do we make of these numbers from av, the drone oriented defense contractor formerly known as aerovironment? these guys reported after the close of the quarter was solid, with better than expected revenues, bookings and backlog. match was also optimistic enough to raise their full year earnings forecast meaningfully. now, initially, the stock got hit in after hours trading, which is exactly what happened the last time. abbvie reported three months ago, before the stock went on to finish up more than 20% the very next day. and that was an incredible buying opportunity. is it happening again just after the close? i got the chance to speak with wahid nawabi, the chairman, president and ceo of av, to find out. take a look. mr. nawabi, welcome back to mad money. >> jim, great to be with you. >> all right. so we got some work to do once again. i remember if you i don't know if you recall what happened when

you were on last time the stock dropped and then 100 points were made after we really kind of straightened it out. now, the headline numbers indicate $0.32 versus 35. you and i both know that is not an accurate depiction of this quarter. this quarter was an incredibly strong quarter. could you walk us through why it's a stronger quarter than the headline numbers, which are not indicative of how you did. >> absolutely. jim, you called it right last several times. i've been on this show for a long time. i can very confidently say that av is prospects for growth and value creation has never been better. i've been here for 15 years and it's been the best i've ever seen it. number one. number two. why is there such a strong belief in that? is that the need for the type of solutions that we specialize in, and we are experts in has never been greater, never been greater. we have a national security priority and sense of urgency. it's it's supported by both parties, by the administration. we have conflicts around the world. we've worked really hard

to put this company together, to position us for this type of growth and prosperity. we have had an outstanding quarter. q1 nearly $455 million in revenue. we've got a $1.1 billion worth of bookings and backlog, backup backlog. and we've got $3.1 billion worth of unfunded backlog. these are contracts that are, over time, all going to convert and translate into unfunded backlog and revenue. these are the contracts that the customers have placed with us that allow us to actually deliver these systems to them over the next couple of three years, three years or so. so fantastic quarter launched a lot of new products, very, very excited about the growth and the performance that we've done so far. >> okay. so it's really important for people to recognize that when we read these stories about how ukraine's got inexpensive drones, that north korea has inexpensive iran, that the kind of thing you're working on, the anti-drone comes in well underneath them and is more effective. tell us how that project is going. >> absolutely. if you look at

our portfolio, it's really unmatched in the entire defense industry, to our knowledge, to our experience. we make drones. we make counter drones. we make rf jamming systems against drones. we make directed energy and laser systems for that. we have space communication and lasers for that direct energy. we've got loaded munitions. we have one, we attack drones, and we have the most prolific suite of software solutions that connects all these with ai and autonomy. and we just launched that product called av halo ecosystem. it's a very large and integrated portfolio of solutions that connects all these systems with existing legacy systems, as well as the future unmanned systems that are out there. so our solution set is unmatched in the industry. we have expertise in the industry and in the field. we've got decades of proven and proven products in the field by the tens of thousands that are actually relevant on today's fight every day, and our customers are incredibly

satisfied with our systems, and we have this pending threat with china, russia and other adversaries. that's not getting better. and the us is behind, and we need companies like us av to step up and actually scale production, which we have uniquely the capacity and capability to do so as well. so those are the key reasons why we feel so strongly about our business. and we've really worked hard to build this over the last decade to position us for such growth. >> and we've been working together on this. i mean, the whole time i felt that depending on was not in favor of what you were doing, because the pentagon does favor manned missions, manned pilots, a whole suite of planes that cost hundreds of millions of dollars that can be shot down way too easily, unfortunately. so then we have to have triple redundancy, which makes it even more expensive. i prefer your method. it looks like they're coming around now. tell me about golden dome. >> so we just announced a partnership strategic partnership with sierra nevada corporation, which is another very, very capable and very

credible company in this area that we today. we actually put our teams together and invested our own funds, our own money to develop a solution set that can address the golden dome demand and requirement and objective for the country. we have the pieces of the solution that allows us to take over, to go to our critical sites, and the government and our customers can actually specifically tell us which sites. and we provide a layered, limited defense solution set for those sites. we have the drones for surveillance. we've got satellite communication systems and laser communications. we have directed energy solutions. we have the software that allows us to track all these threats against hypersonics, against drones, against missiles. so we have the 80% solution today off the shelf without any additional investments from the government that we can go in and implement immediately. we will even commit that we will take a contract to get a site up and

running operationally and defend it and and deliver on the performance specifications by the end of this calendar year. this calendar. >> extraordinary. >> so i am really i'm very excited about that. >> okay. now i do want to know about something that happened last weekend. we we saw an attack a russian russia hit ukraine with the largest aerial attack in the war so far, which included, by the way, more than 800 attack drones. if you were there with everything you have, what could you have done to try to stop that attack? >> well, i unfortunately, because of the sensitivity of this mission with these missions, i can't go into the specifics of that particular mission. what i can tell you, jim, which is important, is that the solutions that we have will enable the united states and our allies to defend quite successfully against such an attack that happened in russia with the ukrainians. we have the technology today to defend

our sites. that's why we feel very strongly that on a golden dome situation, and for that objective, we can implement that solution today with already developed investments that we've made over the last decade to protect our sites, to protect our nuclear weapon sites, to protect our forward operating bases, military bases, critical infrastructure sites. these are things that we have to protect. it's not a matter of when. it's a matter of when. the sooner we get on with this, the better. i commend the president for taking that initiative. the department for going after it. we're ready to actually help and deliver the solution and implement it. >> one last question i did want to ask you about red dragon, because you have been saying it's designed to be mass produced affordably. those who think that we don't know how to make an inexpensive but terrific drone, they're wrong. right? given what i just heard about red dragon. >> absolutely. we have designed that product from the ground up to be not only low cost, but

also mass producible and also autonomous capable, so it could actually operate successfully in very, very contested battle spaces like the ukraine battle space. this is a capability that we have today that we could scale, and it's inexpensive, it's affordable. it allows us to have swarms of these by the tens of thousands against our adversaries all around the globe. it will give us a competitive edge in the battlefield, and we need to act on these things. and i think i commend the department. the us army is taking very significant steps to modernize and transform, and we're talking to them and working with them. and i think solutions such as red dragon is going to be part of that solution set for the future. >> excellent. i want to thank you, mr. nawabi, for coming on. and again, once again, the headline numbers are not how you should react to this stock. you should react to what he just said in this interview, just like he did last time when

the stock then had 100 point move. don't let don't be fooled by a headline writer number. thank you so much. good to see you. >> thank you jim. great to be with you again. >> mad money back after the break. >> coming up, what can some of the biggest speculative stocks tell us about the state of the market? cramer's going off the charts to see if now's the time to get into these names. next. >> on cnbc live. ambitiously. >> september 16th cnbc teams up with two time nba champion kevin durant and boardroom for game plan, exploring the business of sports, music and entertainment. register now at cnbc. com gameplan. >> welcome to cnbc's crypto world. >> cnbc's daily digital show has trading updates, the latest headlines, a global perspective and high profile interviews. and high profile interviews. scan to [music playing] a professional basketball court is always 94 by 50ft.

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from their highs. and i think it's worth taking a closer look to see if they might be worth buying on weakness. now i'm talking about anything related to rockets, autonomous driving, nuclear power, the kind of unprofitable high growth stock that they've dominated for much of the year, but not lately. and that's why tonight we're going off the charts with the help of bob lang. yes. bob, the founder of explosive options dot net, as well as the author of know your options. we're going to dig deeper. now, personally, i'm a big believer in speculation. you know that as long as it's done wisely, which means you got to take some profits on the way up, you got to know when to cut your losses when something goes wrong. but i bless it because so much money can be made. so let's go through the charts of some of the biggest speculative winners of the year, most of which have now pulled back from their highs with the exception of apple oven, which made a new

high today after we found out it was being added to the s&p 500 last week. we're going to start with one that i don't talk about. it's called ouster. and this makes 3d lidar sensors use sensors used for autonomous vehicles, drones, robotics, mapping and defense, something that's been described as physical ai. when you look at the daily chart, this one is one of lag's favorites. even though ouster has come down from its august highs. we're looking at ones that have come off. he points out that the stock is still in a beautiful uptrend with a series of higher highs and higher lows. meanwhile, volume trends have been incredibly bullish. it tends to have a higher volume on up days and lower volume on down days. for example, during the recent sell off, we've seen very low volume. now that ouster has pulled back to just above its 50 day moving average right there. lang thinks you're getting terrific buying opportunity right here, right now. what makes them so bullish? for starters, i want you to take a look at the on balance volume line. this is down at the bottom okay. look at this

thing okay. this is a volume based technical indicator that uses a running total of trading volume to predict price changes. adding volume on up days. subtracting on down days to gauge buying and selling pressure. really cool indicator, frankly. and as you can see, on balance volume has been exploding. perfect, perfect. even as the stock's come down at the same time lang spotted signs of institutional buying. plus, it doesn't hurt that allison reported a very strong quarter with a healthy guide up last month. of course, the stock is definitely not cheap. it has a history of being extremely volatile. but if ouster can rebound back to its old highs in the mid 30s, lang thinks it could eventually run all the way to 45, maybe 50, by early next year. we've had a market that's been very friendly for speculative stocks. you know that that's for most of the past year and really the last five years it's worked. and nothing's really changed. ouster is likely to remain a winner. this would be a good stock in my book, how to make money in any market. i talk about having a speculative stock. this would be the kind of thing that i would say. you

know what? off? it's kind of off the beaten path, but it's going to be right next. all right. here's another one that's really interesting. rocket lab with its lightweight orbital rockets. now here's the stock that's spent most of the summer ripping higher for the company, received a large grant from the government and had some successful rocket launches. however, the stock ran out of steam in july, and since then, it's gradually come off its highs, mostly trading sideways for the past two months. this is this consolidation that sometimes i know that bob likes very much. of course, lang puts out the rocket lab is still up roughly 220% from its april lows. this rally is mainly occurring in heavy fine. this is one of those stocks that's beloved by younger retail investors. although lang thinks it's starting to attract interest from big institutional money managers too. he sees the stock's recent pullback to the 50 day, 50 day moving average. sorry to use the short end as another chance to buy the dip, but i know many of you probably think dip. but in this world, in this speculative world, that is a dip. when you look at the action over the summer pullback hard, then rebounded dramatically on high volume a few weeks ago before cooling off again. when you look at the

on balance volume again we're going down here. okay. and also the moving average convergence divergence which is right here. you get some really good buy interest. it is due. this is a $47 stock that could move above $60 in short order. i like that move. and you know what? if the fed gets aggressive cutting interest rates all these speculative is going to roar higher. so let's let's think about rocket lab. that one looks very right. then there's one that you know i like and i talk about all the time. that's oklo oklo at designs compact nuclear reactors that can be built more quickly. everybody loves nuclear these days because it's the most reliable way to generate clean energy. and we are desperate for electricity thanks to the ai data center wave. as a matter of fact, it's the gating factor for nvidia. you need more power. that's why atlas had such a huge run from its lows in april to its highs in early august. just take a look at the daily chart here. this is pretty amazing. we've got a series of higher highs and higher lows. laying the groundwork for a classic uptrend. even though

alcoa has pulled back from its highs, lang points out that volume trends remain bullish and the stock really bounced off its 50 day moving average. you see this theme again. he loves it when they bounce off the 50 day. and then that's going to be a springboard. it's still down from its high which is very unusual for a speculative stock. this could be well positioned even as you probably think. wait a second. didn't i miss it? that's not the way it works. like the others, the on balance volume here is solid and it's trending higher. meanwhile the macd line. look at this. we got a crossover right here. bullish crossover where the black line crosses over the red. that's good. that counts. that counts. and where the and that's one of the most reliable positive indicators out there. of of course with the recent decline alcoa has now got got a downtrend line in place. but lang is betting the stock can break through that level in part because get this, the short interest in this one has gotten very high. people betting against it. right now it's about 15 to 17% of the entire float of the stock. when too many short sellers bet against these speculative names, the meme stock crowd knows that

they love to gang up on the shorts. as we remember from gamestop, it's relentless buying in order to break the backs of the shorts. basically, just under 74 bucks, and as long as it can get back above its previous high of 85, well, lang says you got smooth sailing to the triple digits. triple digits. all right. now finally, let's talk about the one stock that hasn't cooled off at all. and therefore you may not like it that much. and that's how beloved, the digital advertising play that we learned was joining the s&p 500 last friday. this stock spent months rallying relentlessly to the point where it exploded higher yesterday and made another new high today. the last quarter was phenomenal. apple evans earnings should be more than double this year. i'm i don't even want to tell you what i'm thinking about for next year. the stock is far from cheap. at roughly 60 times this year's earnings estimates. it will turn out to be cheap. if we do get the numbers that i'm thinking about for next year. really interesting pattern here. i've been worried that apple might pull back a bit now that it's finally added to the 50 to the s&p 500 months,

but the darn thing just won't stop. litecoin points out that we just got. this is one of the most beautiful crossovers i've seen. while the on balance volume look at this remains robust. stock recently bounced very hard off the 50 day. remember i told you he loves a hard bounce off the 50 day? what can i even say about applovin. stock was up 700% last year. it's now up about 70% year to date. lang's betting it will keep rallying without looking back. i think this is a mini google. here's the bottom line. the charts are interpreted by bob lang. suggest that speculative stocks like allstate rocket lab can get their groove back, while apple is just going to continue to roar. i think he makes a very compelling case, although at the end of the day, speculative names do tend to trade together. but as long as the market remains friendly to speculation, these four are going to keep running. just keep in mind that the market won't stay like that forever. but why not make the money when you can? i'm going. i'm going

to the show me state. i'm going to jerry in missouri. jerry. >> hey, jim. thanks for taking my call. >> oh my pleasure. jerry. what's up? >> jim, i don't understand why we are battling cybersecurity stocks. after last quarter's report, this cyber stock dropped significantly as the club's price target of $520. still valid on crowdstrike. >> you bet it is. and i think george is doing i'm speaking here of george curse. there's a great interview, by the way. yahoo finance just tells you all that you need to know. i think crowdstrike is in i think it's a crouching tiger. that's what i think it is. and i'm thinking this stock is a $500 stock. that's how much i like crowdstrike. right. the charts, as interpreted by bob lang, suggest that the speculative names will indeed get the group back in short order, while apple continues to plow higher. what can i say? just remember that the market won't necessarily stay this friendly to speculative stocks. but i got to tell you something. there's money being made, right? much more mad money ahead.

casey's general stores has become one of our favorite under the radar growth stories over the past few years, and after reporting a top and bottom line beat this story. still have legs? i'll give you my take. hey, then palantir changed the face of speculation. this market. i'm discussing its impact on how to size up the other potential winners. and once again, here comes palantir. and of course, all your calls. rapid fire. tonight's edition of the lightning round. so stay with cramer. >> celebrating 30 years of squawk box tomorrow. charles scharf michael rubin mohamed el-erian squawk box 30 tomorrow, 6 a.m. eastern and streaming on cnbc plus. >> it's all. target. tom. big

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your customers and your team. race dow to for imprint. >> com for imprint for certain. >> last night we got the latest set of numbers from casey's general stores, which is a chain of 2900 roadside convenience stores across 19 states, mostly located in very small towns. now, i have been a

big unmitigated fan of casey's for a couple of years now because they found this great niche. there's a reason the stock is up almost 2,400% over the past 20 years. these guys intentionally target smaller markets where their gas stations and convenience stores with fresh, hot food can become a big draw. and that's what's turned casey's into a spectacular regional to national growth story. it's also, by the way, why the stock always seems to fly under the radar on wall street. most people in the financial industry have never seen a casey's, with its stores mostly in the midwest and southeast, and they certainly haven't. it's absolutely fantastic. breakfast pizza. they basically take this bacon, egg and cheese sandwich into a pizza and, well, you know what? it works. i tried it for the first time over the summer. it is legitimately great. and i'm from jersey where like, you know, i'm a taylor ham guy. now the stock is now up 94%, 94% since i started pushing this thing two years ago, trouncing the s&p 500, which is why i keep going back to the well

with this one. however, after the stock soared in response to earnings in early june, casey spent most of the summer trading sideways. as we waited the company's earnings. last night, it was off about ten points from its july highs, even as it was still up 30% for the year. that's one reason why casey initially got very little love after we reported last night the actual quarterly results. they were excellent. excellent. we're talking a healthy top and bottom line beat with 11.5% revenue growth as every individual business line came in stronger than expected. casey's inside same store sales were up 4.3%. wall street was only looking for 3.6%, with prepared food coming in much better than expected for the fuel business. same store gallons sold were up. interesting metric were up 1.7%. the analysts were looking for 0.3 percent growth. we'll take volume growth any day when it comes to fuel. casey saw some nice margin expansion too, which is how the company could deliver a clean 75 cent earnings beat off of a $5 and two cent basis. that's huge. it's nearly 20% earnings growth, led by the strength of their

inside the store business, meaning the convenience store, not the gas station, meaning those breakfast pizzas. same store sales were up nearly 6%. wow. i mean, that's incredible. but that isn't just breakfast pizza. they also have sandwiches, wraps, sandwiches, wraps, wings, salads, fresh cookies. cookies are very good. but ceo darren also called out, quote, positive traffic growth due to our summer merchandizing plan as well as our team's outstanding execution, demonstrating our ability to serve our guests efficiently at a high level. and you know, these guys mean this stuff. on top of that, he said that the company's fuel team, quote, did a tremendous job achieving same store gallon growth while maintaining a healthy fuel margin. end quote. i know, fuel team. hey, listen, they got the best fuel team. what can i say? and that thanks to the company's steady, deliberate expansion plans. casey's also benefiting from operating over 200 more stores than it did a year ago. put it all together, and i think you've got some excellent numbers. okay. all right. but there was one minor

issue with the quarter, which is that management merely maintained their full year forecast rather than raising it. i've said that that's often a problem, but let's unpack this. for many on wall street, it's de facto guide dow because they just reported better than expected quarter, and they didn't raise their guidance to just specifically. casey continues to expect inside same store sales to increase 2% to 5% this year, with the quote inside margin of roughly 41%. same store fuel gallons sold are still expected to be -1% to positive 1%. total operating expenses are still expected to increase by 8 to 10% in casey's plans to open at least 80 stores in fiscal 2026, through a combination of m&a and new construction. this outlook was not necessarily disappointing on its own. it was totally in line with what the analysts were looking for going into the quarter. but given the casey just reported a big top and bottom line beat for the quarter, it was a bummer when they left their forecast for the rest of the year unchanged. and that's why the stock got

dinged a little bit at the opening today. let's go through this. i wasn't deterred at all viewing this negative response to casey's overwhelmingly positive quarter as a potential buying opportunity for you. as i said on squawk on the street this morning when i was down. why? first, let's tackle that unchanged guidance issue head on. while i obviously would have loved to see casey's raised its full year forecast, the company is only one quarter into its 2026 fiscal year for most publicly traded companies. its standard operating procedure to not raise their full year forecast after just one quarter. unless the numbers are insanely strong. on this morning's conference call, casey cfo steve bramlage laid it all out. quote, consistent with our past practice, we plan to update annual guidance on our second earnings quarter call when we're through the seasonally largest time of the year. end quote there. you said it. okay. a couple tried to specifically suss out whether the lack of guidance increase indicated any extra costs from casey's management. the answer was basically no, not really. management simply reiterated that they'll provide an update

on their outlook after the second quarter, which is the way they do it when there's, quote, more visibility into the balance of the year end quote. hey, that's fine with me, especially given the company's great track record. it should be fine with you. it's the chance to buy it without the the what i think is going to be a guide up next quarter. now, there was plenty of other positive commentary too, because behind us folks, even here, this company is a very sophisticated operator. for example, this summer merchandizing effort i mentioned earlier was a true casey's wide team effort with coordination between supply chain and fuel teams and every member in between. end quote. and a rebel has mentioned that their data and insights, which are gathered from their nearly 10 million casey's rewards members, help inform merchandizing efforts along with the company's pricing strategy and even decisions like bringing back a popular limited time only lto barbecue brisket pizza, which i also had. and i got to tell you is. leisure management also said it's taking market share in fuel, and it's doing so without sacrificing margins. i told you they had a good fuel team. it's

all very impressive. and after this quarter, i remain very much in the bull camp on casey's. and it seems like the market agrees. after trading lower for most of the day, casey's shares did catch fire in the afternoon rally, about 25 points in the final two hours of trading to close the day up almost 20 bucks or nearly 4%. that's why that morning call was so important. okay, so here's the bottom line. last night we got another terrific quarter from casey's general, one of my absolute favorite under-the-radar growth stocks. you can buy this one and put it away. while the stock initially didn't react because management left their full year forecast unchanged. i think they only did that because they feel it irresponsible to raise their guidance after just one quarter, as many companies do. they don't want to get ahead of themselves, but everything's going great in cases. and the market eventually got this one right. still, after today's gains, you know what? i think there's much more upside to come. that money's back after the break. >> coming up cramer takes your calls and the sky's the limit. it's a fast fire lightning

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mortgage rates with the potential of falling interest rates. i read that this benefits these companies as. i'm sorry. what? >> any mortgage rate in particular. no, i don't like agnc. i think you're going to find over time, you're just going to get your money, you get the dividend, you're never sure what they really own. it is not a growth vehicle. i like growth. now we're going to go to ian in florida ian. >> hey. booyah jim how are. >> you doing. i'm doing well ian how about you. >> i'm doing excellent jim. thank you jim want to ask you a question about a stock that's really been beat up for a while now. but it's starting to make a comeback. what do you think about. unh. here. >> okay. unh. reminds me, i don't want to say too much to google, but, you know, when the government gets involved, you do get very, very nervous if something's really wrong. but unitedhealth has been going up. but there's something really wrong. i think the ceo at this point would have disclosed that

they did talk about the rankings today. the rankings are good. what can i say? i don't like to buy stocks that are under investigation, but it does seem to be that well, i don't want to say the worst is over because it might not be, but there are some people who seem to know that the worst is over. how about that? and that, ladies and gentlemen, the conclusion of the lightning round. >> the lightning round is sponsored by charles schwab. coming up, going all in on ai. cramer is digging into ai infrastructure player nevius seeing if the stock can keep up its momentum. fresh off its new microsoft deal. next. >> jim cramer is a die hard of the dollar. >> hey jimmy, love the show. my five year old grandson loves to watch your show. >> i have to thank you for making us money when it's there to be made. >> our world is a better place >> our world is a better place with you in it. [music playing] a professional basketball court is always 94 by 50ft. an olympic size pool is 50 by 25 meters.

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>> for years, i've hesitated to embrace speculation in the show because so often the most beloved speculative stocks turn out to be nothing more than well disguised pump and dump efforts. sure, with the advent of meme stocks, you could own a gamestop and amc entertainment. let others take you out higher. although to me again, those seem like sophisticated pump and dump operations too. but everything changed when the stock of palantir arrived. the defense oriented software company that relies heavily on artificial intelligence soared. stock rallied from around around $35 a year ago to $162 today, on the strength of a series of very strong reports that vastly exceeded projections. real stuff. i've been around for a while, and it really isn't easy to spot new patterns, but as i say in how to make money in any market, the speculative plays do deserve a place in your portfolio. one palantir, which i continue to say will go above $200, can supercharge your entire returns, and not just for days or months, but even

for years. when i saw the saga of palantir unfold, i realized there had been a sea change in this market. a new cohort of investors welcomed stocks with fantastic stories, and they keep buying those stocks for a long time after the news broke. historically, good news would produce a ripple in the stock. but now it's a flood and it's almost like an endless flood. after palantir got hit with a host of spec stocks. and bless them all, there was joby, the flying car company. it was in the sevens. i dismissed it earlier, but i discovered that boeing has been working on a flying car too. so who was i to dismiss the idea? the stock almost tripled soon after that. then viewers urged me to focus on nuclear power. when i looked up. when i looked over the group, i found one that seemed like a serious bet, which is building small form nuclear reactors. given the high demand for electricity, thanks to the data center buildout, which we heard just again tonight with oracle, and the fact that a company with significant customer interest, i decided to spend my suspend my critical judgment. and i told you that it might take only one positive headline for this stock to

rocket. sure enough, a $33 stock gapped up when it was selected for a dod contract. i don't think it's done going higher. sometimes, though, you have a winner right in front of your face and you don't realize it. when i was at nvidia's gtc conference in san jose last year, i was checking out the booths of all those companies that were working with nvidia, installing product into the data centers like hp enterprise, dell, and at the end of the hall, in what seemed to me to be a pretty empty boost to this company. nebulous is a data center builder like core. i felt bad for them, like no one was paying any attention to them, so i asked what they did. i sauntered over there. they filled me in. they were going to be a part of the power solution. i thanked them, never really thought about it again until yesterday, when the company won a $17 billion contract to build a data center for microsoft in vineland, new jersey, a town i knew well because my father took me there when i was a little boy, when he sold boxes and bags to the retailers there. sure enough, nebulas, which had been creeping up from $64 to nearly $96 today in a colossal move that, as it turns out, used to

be a part of yandex. controversial russia story spun out from yandex is controversial. no more. it's just electric, literally. and it reminded me that in this market, you better keep your eyes open for speculative stocks that work. there's lots of money chasing speculative stocks now, so when you get a good headline, you have no idea how high the stock in question can go. there's never been a market like this, people. it's certainly going much higher than anyone would reasonably expect. and that money can be yours for the taking. alex. there's always a bull market there's always a bull market somewhere. and just narrator: tonight on "shark tank"... we're two chefs that met while working at a three-michelin-star restaurant. who's ready to help me take the hassle out of prepping healthy meals? -yee-haw! -whoo! this is one of the smartest changes i have heard of. i've worked really hard to get to this point. i don't need you to interview me. this is not the product that's gonna set you free. it goes to kevin's ignorance. robert has no equity in the food industry -- zero. nobody knows who he is. i can't take it anymore.